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Cross-CDT Trip 2019 & World Cup Dinner

On 29th of June 9 CDT PhD students from 2 different CDTs left London for a 3 days trip to the countryside to explore West England.

On Friday morning all of us met at Heathrow airport at the Sixt car rental shop. After everyone arrived and after we got our cars we drove towards Bristol and then turned further left to reach a town called Tauton. There we bought some groceries and continued our journey to finally reached our end destination with was a small farm located between Taunton and Exeter.

Immediately the AirBnB owner welcomed us with her lively 3 dogs Bisket, Douglas and Holly.

NHLI Careers Panel

The National Heart and Lung Institute Postgraduate committee organised a PhD careers panel on the 7th June with great success. The event, which was held at the union bar in South Kensington, was extremely well attended. Students travelled from all the Imperial campuses, which is often a challenge to achieve. Our five panellists were all working in non-academic areas such as industry, medical writing and scientific consulting. Students asked questions about interviews, their day to day life at work and why they chose their career paths.

After the panel session, students had the opportunity to chat one on one with the panellists and ask more specific questions.

MetID workshop

By Erika Dorado and Kiana West, STRATiGRAD PhD programme, Department of Surgery and Cancer

A workshop focused on the identification of metabolites was organised by the STRATiGRAD PhD programme in collaboration with the Centre for Metabolomics and Bioanalysis (CEMBIO). The MetID workshop took place between 12th and 15th June 2018, in Madrid.

The MetID workshop started with oral presentations given by PhD students from both Imperial and CEMBIO. The PhD students had the opportunity to present their research projects in seven minutes to an audience composed of recognised researchers in this field. We had the opportunity to practice our presentation skills and share our research experience by providing concise information about our PhD projects.

MRC-LMS PhD Workshop & Careers Forum at the Wellcome Collection, Euston Square

The second annual Medical Research Council (MRC) London Institute of Medical Sciences (LMS) PhD Student Retreat took place on Friday 25 May 2018. Held at the iconic Wellcome Collection in Euston Square, this event offered PhD students from all year groups the chance to engage and socialise with students from outside of their immediate research section.

Building on the success of the inaugural 2017 retreat held at Kew Gardens, this year’s event had a renewed focus on ‘Career Development and Networking’; prompting students to start considering what future avenues they may wish to explore upon completion of their PhD studies.

In this vein, the day began with a Networking Workshop delivered by Katie Dallison from the Imperial Careers Service, which provides students with free help and advice regarding career advancement, like CV checks and interview preparation.

How interventions are spread: Winning second prize at the Research as Art Summer Showcase

By Sophie Spitters, PhD Student, Department of Medicine

The Imperial College London Graduate School organised their annual Summer Showcase on Friday July 13th. The showcase aims to celebrate research undertaken by PhD students at Imperial and invites staff, students and visitors to find out more about their work via a poster and a research as art exhibition. I joined the research as art exhibition, showcasing my NIHR CLAHRC NWL research, and won second prize! First prize was won by Iman Ibrahim, who demonstrated what it takes to get clean drinking water to our taps in her mandala called ‘the ripple effect’. 

“Dream Today, Do Tomorrow”: Reflections from a cross-cultural, climate change-themed summer in Beijing

By Shiladitya Ghosh, 2nd Year PhD Student, Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London

In the modern day, students (especially PhD students) tend to have a crippling fear of committing to future plans because – “what if I end up needing those extra days to finish this report or do repeats for my experiments?” As the 2018 edition of the Imperial – Tsinghua Global Fellows Programme (GFP) on Climate Change and Energy drew near, I too had misgivings. Who was going to write my reports for me?!

However, a change in setting and scenery helps to calm and settle the mind – and I experienced this upon landing in Beijing in the sweltering 36°C early morning sun.

Our experience organising SciFun

Inception

A couple of us postgraduate students came together and decided that it will be a great idea to have a mini-conference-type event within the department that could foster learning and networking. There are immensely valuable resources available within the department, with subject matter experts and we thought it would be great to capitalise on that and get these experts to share their experiences in characterisation techniques with the postgraduates.

Event

Since the purpose of the event was to foster learning and networking, it was necessary to have a social event to it as well. Ultimately, we managed to secure 6 speakers to share on characterisation techniques.

Inter-group Bowling Event 2018

by Adrian Brown, Investigative Medicine

We originally decided to organise a social event to try and help our fellow colleagues beat the January blues! Once we had a spare moment, and to stop the students going on a New Year’s strike, we decided to organise an after-work bowling event. We invited students from Investigative Medicine and the Division of Brain Sciences to attend the inter-group networking event on Friday 12th January 2018. We were very fortunate and extremely grateful as this event was funded by the Graduate School. Attendees were randomly divided into teams across the three bowling alleys hired and participated in some friendly competition to find the top scoring team and player.

Connections and Collaborations: The Global Fellows Programme on Cities of the Future. Charishma Ratnam, PhD Candidate, University of New South Wales Australia

by Charishma Ratnam, PhD Candidate, University of New South Wales, Australia

Introduction

It is becoming a household statistic: by 2050, 66% of the world’s population will live in cities[1]. This statistic holds much value for me as I pursue my research on migration (specifically in regard to refugees and asylum seekers) and how migrants settle in places. When I was given the opportunity to apply for the Global Fellows Programme: Cities of the Future with this year’s focus on health and well-being, this statistic resonated with me even more. The current state and future of our big cities has become contentious, and the programme was able to offer a space for interdisciplinary discussions to take place.

Global Fellows Programme “Innovation to Eradicate Poverty”, a rich educational and cultural experience in Japan!

By Vasiliki Kioupi, PhD student in the Centre for Environmental Policy

Doing my research on Transformative Education for a Sustainable Society I always thought about visiting Japan. Not only because the Global Action Plan on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) was launched during the UNESCO World Conference in Aichi-Nagoya in 2014 but also because during the decade for ESD (2005-2014), which was initially proposed by the government of Japan to UNESCO, I was a classroom teacher actively engaged in Environmental Education Projects with my students in Greece.

When I saw the opportunity for the Global Fellows Programme themed “Innovation to Eradicate Poverty” advertised by the Imperial College Graduate School in collaboration with Tokyo Institute of Technology, I was intrigued to apply.